Notes on Jeff Wall

• ‘Certain things probably attract me more than others, as well. and I don’t want to get very much control over that, either.’ – I agree portraiture and objects attract me more than landscapes.
• ‘So I’m looking for ways, ways of showing, ways of creating an appearance of something, whether it is a scene of tension or of something else. Also, I don’t feel that there is any preferable kind of subject, especially since subjects usually come up by accident’. Some of my best photography especially portraiture has been created accidentally.

Technical

The lighting is artificial you can see the light bulbs on the ceiling. What’s interesting is that the subject, the woman is being illuminated however the photographer in the image is in the dark which is maybe symbolic of the photographer’s job always in the shadows behind the camera.

Visual

The image uses the rule of thirds, the image is divided into three parts one with the photographer, one with the woman and one with the camera. This is framed by the pole stands dividing the room.

Contextual

The work picture for women was produced in 1979. It was produced in response to Edouward Manet’s realism painting Un bar aux Folies Bergere. (below)

Wall’s image, therefore, references popular culture at the time in the way that critics were at the time arguing over the impossibilities of the painting. The image is seen contextual as one of the first moves from an art form from the printed page to the gallery.

Conceptually

The image is technically a tablet photo in the way that Wall was almost reenacting the painting. He’s used the lighting to create the same spatial depth as in the painting. The whole image is meant to represent the mirror of the bar where his ‘barmaid’ has the same absorbed look as the barmaid in the painting and is being observed by a dark figure. Through the male gaze, there is a power relationship between the onlooker, female and male and the onlooker that has been recreated from the painting.

From the 3 spreads that are labelled under people, objects and bunkers one image we took will be selected and then published inside the JEP

PICTORIALISM

time period : 1880’s – 1920’s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Making photographs look like a painting.

Artists associated: Julia Margaret Cameron, Peter Henry Emerson, Vienna camera club, linked ring brotherhood, photo-secession, Sally Mann.

Some Works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Using petroleum jelly/ Vaseline type gel to rub on the lens of a camera to make it blurry, and make spaces in the images look like smudged charcoal. Scratching images.

REALISM / STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

Time period: 1920’s – 1930’s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Reacting against pictorialism, recording things as they are; without any alterations.

Artists associated: Walker Evans, Willy Ronis, Édouard Boubat,

Some Works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: Social Reform Photography; origins of photojournalism.

Realism is not so much a style, but rather one of its fundamental qualities. From its beginnings in the 1830s and 40s, photographers and viewers of photography marveled at photography’s ability to capture an imprint of nature. Photography’s capacity to depict people, objects and places realistically made it suitable for trying to record and document individual likenesses, scientific discoveries and foreign places – concerns that were of particular interest for 19th-century Europeans.   

The time period for pictorialism was the 1880’s – 1920’s. Pictorialism is an approach to photography that emphasizes the beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality. I would describe pictorialist photographs to be very dreamy and reminds me of fairy-tales. They focus on the dream world and oppose documentative photographs. They tend to focus on nature, however they do also feature cityscapes. They also tend to have fog or low clouds which gives it a dream like effect.

Reacting to the widespread commercial and domestic uses of photography for recording people, events and places, pictorialist photographers sought to evoke emotional sensations and states of mind. They depicted commonplace scenes in ways that suggested psychological and spiritual meanings. 

MODERNISM

Time period: Early 1900’s – 1960’s

Key characteristics/ conventions : Modern Photography is distinguished by a departure from the language and constraints of traditional art, such as painting, and this change in attitude was mirrored by changes in practice. Photographers started using the camera as a direct tool rather than manipulating images to conform to traditional notions of artistic beauty; a convention associated most with pictorialism.

Artists associated: Paul Strand, Ansel Adams

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: social, political and aesthetic potential, experimenting with light, perspective and developing, as well as abstraction.

POST-MODERNISM

Time period: 1970’s – Present; A rise in consumerism.

Key characteristics/ conventions : Mix of different styles, approaches and art movements. The works favor context and refer to different areas outside of the works themselves. The idea matters more than the work of art itself. The growth of consumerism and instant gratification over the last few decades of the 20th century has also had a huge impact on visual art. Consumers now want novelty. They also want entertainment and spectacle. In response, many postmodernist artists, curators and other professionals have taken the opportunity to turn art into an “entertainment product”.

Artists associated: Andreas Gursky, Jeff Wall, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, Cindy Sherman.

Key works:

Methods/ techniques/ processes: incorporating elements of popular culture as the subject of the image, making use of eclecticism (using a range of sources to take inspiration/ideas from), using collaboration (multiple people working together to focus on the collective effort rather than an individuals contributions to an image), emphasizes context and concept in the subjects, rather than the physical objects, makes use of multimedia (using different medium in order to express an idea).

Plan a response: make use of popular culture, use this as the context for the image – make use of a range of sources (e.g take inspiration from post-modernist artists and influences), make use of multimedia (e.g text within the image), all aspects linked together to portray a concept/emphasize the context/background of the subjects in the image, rather than just the appearance/use subjects themselves

Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction against the ideas and values of modernism, as well as a description of the period that followed modernism's dominance in cultural theory and practice in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century. The term is associated with skepticism, irony and philosophical critiques of the concepts of universal truths and objective reality. Postmodern art questions the notion of authenticity and embraces 'hybridity’, blurring the lines between high art and popular culture. Postmodern photographers are particularly interested in the selective, constructed nature of the photograph. Artists like Cindy Sherman, Barbera Kruger, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso are well known post modernist artists.